I live with a bumbling small town guy: Kalki Koechlin

The other day, I woke up at four am, groggy and cold and had to catch a flight back to India. I was very reluctant that morning to leave my husband’s arms and I was whining about how I didn’t want to travel alone and so was not in the mood to meet people who might recognise me and strike up conversation on the plane. Anurag replied that I should wear a whale and go. In my sleepy state, I imagined myself in the costume of a giant fish trying to get into the plane and I started giggling. It took me a few moments to realise that he had meant to say ‘veil’ but with his Benarasi accent it came out sounding like ‘whale’.

I got to say it’s so good to be in love with a man who can make me laugh all the time. There have been times where we have been in the middle of a really big argument and I’d burst out laughing because he’ll say a word like ‘svaillo’ for ‘swallow’. I’m in love with a man who despite his dark, edgy image, makes light of so many situations and knows how to laugh at himself. I feel that is such a valuable quality to have, to be able to remain human, to never take oneself too seriously and to know when to let go and laugh it out.

There are so many times when I have felt defeated, misunderstood and frustrated with the way the world works and the way people judge you without knowing anything about you and nothing is better than laughing in the face of your problems. It is so liberating to be able to do that, because no one can really criticise or attack laughter, and that’s something Anurag has taught me to do. The man that the world knows, the intense director, is not really the man I live with. I live with this bumbling, small town guy who asks me how to open a bottle of champagne, who gets emotional when he watches Pride and Prejudice, who asks me the meaning of words like ‘pedantic’, who gets shy when I talk about sex.

Really, two people who love each other do so for the small little daily details that no one else can see, they are there for those lighter moments, they are there for the little mood swings and emotional outbursts that make up the memories of life. I don’t know if I’m just lucky, but I really feel that falling in love is a daily habit, not a once in a lifetime thing.

Thank you everybody for writing in every week and sharing your experiences with me. It’s a pleasure writing back to you. Thanks Simran, I know, I have travelled everywhere with my husband and seeing how differently he’s treated because of his brown skin, is really really sad. That is why it is ironic that we are racist against each other in our own country. It’s the divide and rule logic that the English imposed on colonised India, which we are now carrying on ourselves. It’s a bit like shooting ourselves in the foot!

Hi Ashutosh, yes I’m glad I can be myself through my writing, it’s also sort of therapeutic. I’m not such an angry person in real life because I find writing is an outlet for frustration. Thanks Toor, I will try to remain honest to myself.